The Oscar-nominated actress tackles the role of Margaret White - the titular telekinetic teenager's God-fearing mother - in the remake of the classic horror film and says her take on the character is just as scary as Piper Laurie's incarnation in the 1976 version.

She told SFX magazine: "It's impossible not to be scary as this character. She is terrifying. I think any time you encounter a parent being cruel it's terrifying and that's the bottom line. If you think about being a child or an adolescent, you are relatively powerless."

The actress reveals she saw the original film - directed by Brian de Palma - in cinemas when she was just 14 and cried.

She said: "In 1976, I was 14 years old and I remember going to the theatre. There was a huge line in the parking lot that wrapped all the way around. Then everybody coming out of the showing before us was white. We were all wondering, 'Oh my God! What can it be? Why is it so scary?'

"And then you spend the whole movie crying and it's emotional, but you're thinking it's not very scary until you get to the end. I think it's a seminal movie for all of us about adolescence."